


Mathematically-and-Scientifically

by Araine



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-01
Updated: 2012-01-01
Packaged: 2017-11-15 02:40:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/522241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Araine/pseuds/Araine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your name is Karkat Vantas and it is time to buck up, pull your pants above your waistline, and admit to being so horridly in love you can't even stand yourself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mathematically-and-Scientifically

**Author's Note:**

> This is a highschool AU. The trolls are all trolls. The human are all humans. I don't actually give a shit how that came about, that's not important to the story.
> 
> Oh and the Condesce rules everything. Good day.

Your name is Karkat Vantas, and this is your moment.

This is the moment you will put into motion your impeccable plan to make Jade Harley-Egbert, Love Of Your Life, trip right into your arms.

Your plan is both mathematically and scientifically foolproof. You know. You’ve conducted all of the research yourself, every painstaking, tooth-grinding hour.

And then, to top it all off, you had an expert verify it for you.

The power of Science (and Love too, obviously) shall prevail for you and Jade today – or if not precisely today, then sometime soon, as predicted by your mathematical-and-scientific timescale perfectly calibrated for maximum falling-in-love potential.

If this plan doesn’t work, nothing will, and you may as well resign yourself to your eventual fate of perpetual singledom, punctuated only by your friends calling you up at odd hours to give advice on their far more productive love lives and the occasionally neglectful pale ministrations of your unbelievably shitty moirail.

Which is why you are now standing on the Egbert-Harley doorstep, chickening out.

Your finger hovers a micro-grub’s width away from the doorbell and making it move requires a Herculean effort—one that will surely prove you worthy of Jade’s love, should you actually make it.

You silently remind yourself of all the reasons you and Jade Harley-Egbert are perfect for each other:

1\. You are 100% bona-fide In Love with her. By all rights this means you should damn-well be together—although you of all people know how capricious and fickle that thing called Love can be. You, after all, have    lived it. No wonder humans portray it as a nauseating pink grub carrying a bow and arrow like a sick Executor meting out love instead of a swift death. You never trusted that thing and probably never will.

2\. She needs you. She grew up on some island in the pacific and she barks sometimes. This is clearly a cry for help. You’ve seen the quirky troll romcoms. She needs a Strong and Independent troll like yourself to teach her the ropes of this (not-so) urban jungle, or she’ll never survive.

You’re practically doing her a goddamn favor.

3\. Okay you don’t want to spread rumors, but you definitely read that question on that facebook quiz she posted about what she looks for in a significant other, and she said, and you quote, “well i haven’t really thought about it but definitely not somebody creepy or stalkery!”

You, Karkat Vantas, are neither creepy nor stalkery.

So what if you’re around her house enough that you’ve got a shelf in the pantry and a jar of peanut butter with a note that says “I am very proud of you for eating responsibly at our house Karkat. You are practically a second son to me” on it?

That means nothing.

4\.  You don’t actually have a reason 4. Everyone you’ve talked to usually stops you somewhere in the middle of reason 3. You can’t actually blame any of them for this. If you had to hang around listening to a pathetically-lovestruck you for more than five minutes then you’d be expelling yesterday’s grub-sauce out your blabchute posthaste. Your friends are more tolerant people than you deserve.

But if you _did_ have a reason 4 it would probably be something about how she completes you. She blasts through all of your horrific bullshit like a .44 magnum blasts through paper, and yet somehow she’s still miraculously your friend.

So, you reason to yourself, you are clearly meant to be together – hopefully for a measurably large amount of time if not quite forever.

The only thing left is to actually ring the doorbell.

Your finger inches forward, slowly, inexorably. This is your fate. You are running headlong into destiny and it leads to you and Jade Egbert-Harley wrapped in sweet, passionate embrace for a commensurably long time.

It feels glorious. It feels liberating.

It feels like a screen door hitting you in the nose and sounds just like John Egbert saying, “Whoah, Karkat, I didn’t expect you to be there! What are you doing?”

You rub your assaulted sniffing orifice and glare at John. “What does it look like? I was trying to ring the fucking doorbell, John Egbert, before I was maimed by your asinine attempt at opening the door-“

“Whoah there. John Egbert- _Harley_. And I would’ve been fine opening the door if you weren’t there.”

“John Egbert- _Harley_ ,” you spit your contempt for all unnecessarily hyphenated names and bucktoothed idiots who open doors without looking first, “I was _attemping_ to ring the doorbell because that is what anyone with a brain does when they want to enter another being’s domicile and not be considered a home invader which is a crime prosecutable at the state level in some cases and I swear by all that is fucking sacred to you do not ask me how I know that I’m sure you can guess as well as any other chump out there going on about poor Karkat and his public fucking humiliation—the point _is_ , John, that I’ve come to your place of residence to see—“

“Hey, calm down there buddy,” John says, and he claps you on the shoulder. “Wow I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so worked up. I bet I can guess – you heard I was getting Battlefield Earth today and you came to watch it with me!”

“No, no, I did not come to see that massacre of digital effects and Travolta schlock, I came to—“

“Hey, whatever, the trailers are awesome!”

“John you have no taste. I came to—“

Of the four people you consider your Best Friends, John is the only one you have not told of your Deep and Abiding Love for Jade Harley-Egbert and this is because of the very relevant fact that she is his twin sister and you are pretty sure something about the whole business violates the spirit of all 187 sections of buddyfriend code – even the ones you’re pretty sure John made up.

You haven’t gotten around to addressing this complication in your master plans just yet, but all preliminary tests are conclusive: telling John before you talk to Jade spells utter disaster.

Not that this isn’t one already.

You pull your lips back in what you hope constitutes a very friendly grin and say, “Yes. Yes I came to lay my sanity upon the altar of friendship and watch that shitfest you call Space Invaders from Planet Whatever.”

“It’s Battlefield Earth Karkat,” John drawls, but then he grins at you in a chumly manner. “Well, hey, great!” he says. “Let me just check if it’s in the mail—you wanna help me make pizza rolls?” And then he blasts past you like a man on fire in search of water, or a kid who has just dumped you with the task of making enough pizza rolls for the two of you: off to get the mail.

You head inside and dutifully start on the fine art of cooking pizza rolls.

Six minutes forty-three seconds later, the screen door bangs open once again. “So have the Space Invaders descended to devour the last precious shreds of my sanity?” you ask John.

“Oh, hi Karkat!”

The vaunted Psychlos may have yet to descend from planet Amazon.com to enslave you all, but the Love of Your Life has entered the room and she is resplendent in white tanktop and jean shorts, her long hair pulled back out of the way, her hands stained with dirt from—presumably—working in her personal garden.

You spill three pizza rolls on the floor and mutter something that might pass for a greeting on a planet for morons. You bend down to pick up the fallen pizza rolls, throw two of them in the garbage pail and toss one in your mouth. It tastes like freezer burn and shame.

Jade laughs. “It’s good to see you too Karkat,” she says. “Where’s John?”

You chew, hastily.

“Getting the mail, I presume, although why it is taking him so long I can no longer even begin to contemplate.” Your teeth crack on frozen pizza roll, and you spew crumbs and try to pretend that Jade didn’t see your spittle fly across the room and hit the counter. “And it might be better to see you if you didn’t sneak up on people and make them spill pizza rolls all over their friend’s kitchen floor.”

“Yeah, well, it’s good to see you because I need to talk to you about something.”

“What? You do?” you say. “I mean—of course you do. You always have some tip for Karkat’s-Self-Improvement, just waiting for the very moment to make your move, like a helpsassin, always on the move with friendly advice.”

“Only because you’re such a mess,” Jade says, and you’re not sure if she’s serious or if she’s mocking you. You are a mess. A big hot fucking mess of horrific feelings and assholery wrapped up like a pizza roll, in crunchy delicious skin.

You can’t ask her about it, however, because the screen door bangs and this time it definitely is John.

“The movie’s here!” he says, and he waves it about. You see your life flash before your eyes and at the very end of it is a viewing of Travolta in a neckbeard.

“Great,” you enthuse. “How about we start this thing up and I can put my single shred of sanity out of its poor screaming misery to forever wallow in an unvisited grave?”

“Why don’t you go set the movie up?” Jade asks John. “I need to talk to Karkat about something.”

“Oh, yeah, cool,” John says. “You gonna join us? I’ve heard the special effects are wicked cool.”

“Maybe. We’ll see.” Jade grins at John, and smoothly has him out of the kitchen.

It occurs to you that this is it. It is you and Jade, alone in the kitchen. This is the moment to enact your plan with all due swiftness. Strike while the iron is proverbially hot or whatever Vriska would say.

You are about to ask Jade – very casually, like an adult troll who has control of his goddamn life – if she likes coffee and if so which is her favorite flavor yours is an Iced Strawberry Latte Mochachino with Extra Whipped Cream just in case she wants to know, in accordance with Step One of the plan when she drags you – bodily – into the pantry.

You make a sound halfway between a yelp and a gurgle that no self-respecting anyone would ever make.

“What the everloving fuck—“

“Shh!” Jade puts a finger against her lips exaggeratedly.

“Jade I thought you said you wanted to talk not drag me against my will into the pantry.”

This is all said in a very harsh whisper. You want her to know the extent of your disapproval. At last measurement, it extends pretty fucking far. If your disapproval were a measuring tape it would be one of those heavy-duty ones that are meant for ourdoorsy projects. The kinds your lusus always wants you to do at six in the morning after you’ve not slept because you forgot about that big project that has been looming for two months until eleven o’clock the night before and two of your fingers are glued together after your frantic attempt to copy and paste disguised excerpts from the three Wikipedia articles you read early that night and you know – you just know – that he’s doing it to be a dick, so you go to school miserable and annoyed and end up yelling your entire presentation at a class full of stunned  onlookers.

The pantry might be quite large – the size of a small closet – but it was never meant to accommodate two people comfortably. A shelf is pressed against your back, and your elbow is resting in an open space between a box of unopened granola bars and about thirty packs of gushers which you are almost 100% certain belong to John.

Bumping gently into your head is your shelf with your jar of peanut butter. It is like an old friend or camp counselor, giving you a light tap of encouragement: buck up buddy, it’ll be all right.

A singular uncovered lightbulb illuminates the space, and it’s radiating more heat than a thermonuclear detonator.

Or maybe it’s the fact that Jade is standing a grub’s width away from you and staring you down intently.

You press back into the amicable embrace of your shelf and try not to let your embarrassment show.

“We’re in the pantry because otherwise John could see and hear us and I’m pretty sure there are some things you don’t want him to know Karkat.”

Oh. Well that seems remarkably sensible. There are a number of Reasons you have not told John your innermost secrets which you have already gone over ad nauseum.

Still, there’s the principle of the matter.

“What are you talking about? I don’t have any secrets from John. We’re friends. Chums. Compadres. Buddies. Two grubs in a slime pod. Whatever I know he knows. In fact, I have no secrets. If I were any more fucking transparent my skin would show my abominable mutant blood.”

Jade gives you her “cutting through Karkat’s bullshit” look – the one with a half-twist of her mouth downward and that look in her eye like she’d like to raise her eyebrow but shit hasn’t quite got that serious yet.

“It’s okay Karkat,” she says. “I know.”

“No, clearly you don’t know, because there are no secrets going on in this pantry. Unless you’ve got something to tell me Jade. Do you have something to share with the class? Because my auricular sponge clots could sure use some stimulation about now. So go on. Fill my drivelpan with your delicious gossip.”

“Ugh, fine,” Jade says, and you almost breathe a sigh of relief except that this is Jade Harley-Egbert you are talking to and she is leagues too smart for you. However far your paltry attempt at disapproval extends, her intrinsic bullshit-o-meter extends that much further. “If it’s not a secret, then just say it.”

She takes a baby step forward and suddenly she is in your personal bubble. You rear your head back and knock into your jar of peanut butter and it falls with a heavy clunk, and then rolls away.

“I know why you’re over here all the time and making up really shitty excuses for it. I know why you always fall for John’s stupid bucket-over-the-door prank and insist that he wash your shirt even though he literally does it every time you’re here. I know you order bad movies online and say there was a mix up in your queue just so you can come over here and pretend to hate them. I know, Karkat.”

She knows.

You freeze, and the peanut butter rolls back and knocks your horn, which you feel with a jolt down your spine that feels like an epiphany coming down from on high. You are apparently even shittier at keeping secrets than you thought. Which, admittedly, was pretty shitty by your own estimation. You have been regularly cleaned out at poker by a blind girl – and your thank you lucky stars that you were only playing the human version or else you’d be out more than eighty boondollars by now. Still, you thought you’d have more time to prepare before Jade figured you out. Like at least one or two steps down the plan.

You consider your options. You can: 

  * Deny everything. All of that evidence is circumstantial. You actually hate those movies – it’s not your fault your Trollflix suggestions are a horrendous mess – ever since you gave John free reign on your account it’s been Love Actually next to National Treasure with occasionally something Gamzee watched peppered in for premium cross-genre appeal. And, yeah, the falling-for-John’s-shitty-pranks might be intentional but once that bucket of water hits you nobody knows where it’s been and you really need a clean shirt two minutes ago. You are sacrificing shirt cleanliness for the sake of a good friendship with your pal, John Egbert-Harley. Let no one say you are not a saint among trollkind.
  * Sit here and say nothing. Maybe your silence will stonewall her into believing there is nothing afoot. Yeah, good fucking luck with that. You might have a better chance of convincing her you have suddenly fallen deeply in red with Eridan's older brother. If there was a worldwide award for Worst Douche Ever, he would win in every category, and he'd write a speech of acceptance
  * Just tell her. And why not? She clearly already knows. This is not how you had planned to confess your undying love to Jade – pressed against pantry shelves, a peanut butter jar rolling around every time you so much as shift your weight, the light of a single uncovered bulb glinting on her glasses, the intoxicating odor of chips and cardboard assaulting your nostrils, affecting your ability to think cogently.



But hey, maybe it won’t be so bad with her knowing. Maybe if you play your cards right, she won’t even reject you out of hand, and even if she does, well, at least you’re not in public this time, right?

Your eyes flicker to hers and you notice for like the eight billionth time that they are the exact color of that frog you and she dissected together in the eighth grade, also known as the Day You Fell In Love. You move your gaze in a panic that she will see you feelings leaking out through your eyes and look directly at Jade’s lips. She is close enough that you could kiss her – if you were brave enough, and that wouldn’t be like, unbelievably fucking over the line.

“Just say it Karkat,” she says, and she looks at you with eyes the color of dissected frogs. “You are in love with my twin brother.” She pokes you in the chest, to punctuate this.

You can feel your mouth drop open and you are standing there like a slack-jawed milkbeast, spittle dripping from your lips along with half-chewed pizza roll. The motion is so fucking cliché that you hate yourself.

Jade is standing there and her arms are crossed and her “cut the bullshit Karkat” expression has gone to a Raised Eyebrow Alert and she looks expectant of _something_. Your mouth needs words and it needs them now.

And you are so close to telling her: “Jade Harley-Egbert I am in love with _you_ and your round glinty glasses and the dirt under your fingernails and your buck teeth which worry sometimes at your ridiculously kissable lips and I don’t even want to ask about the barking or where that even originated because I am sure there is not enough turpentine in the world to wipe my thinkpan clean of it but I am in love with that too and I know I have absolutely no chances because your internal bullshit-o-meter is going to see through me in a hot second and you’ll know I am probably the most pathetic douchestruck troll who ever lived but I love you.”

Instead, you look her straight in the eye and, like the redblooded coward you are, say, “Yes. Yes I am madly in love with John Egbert.”

Jade executes an actual fistpump which nearly hits you in the eye with enthusiasm. “I knew it!” she says.

“Yes,” you say. “Your sleuthing skills are unparalleled. Now can we get out of this pantry, or do you want to drag even more horrifying confessions from my grub chute?”

“I don’t plan to drag anything from anywhere, Karkat. I _plan_ to help you!”

“What? Look, thought duly appreciated but I don’t need any help, I’ve got it all under con-fucking-trol, so—“

“No, Karkat, you so clearly don’t,” Jade says. “You might think that you do, but I know you, and whatever thirty-step plan you’ve conducted is about thirty steps too many. You can’t decide how other people are going to feel about you – you just need to let him know.”

“Okay, well, first of all you are delusional if you think that I am going to confess love to John “Blithering Idiot” Egbert-Harley. I must be a nooksucking idiot myself for even suggesting that I might have a small shred of red feeling for him in my shriveled heart and if I confess my undying love to him and we end up, of all the horrors, actually in a relationship then we will be the kings of idiot mountain, we will have reached the pinnacle, finally we can aspire to be truly idiot-tier.”

“Wow, Karkat.” The bullshit-o-meter has issued a full red alert and both eyebrows are raised. “Look, trust me okay, there are a lot worse people to be in love with than my brother—“

“Really? Name one!” you say.

“Not the point,” Jade says. “Karkat, you tend to overcomplicated stuff a lot, which is why I’m here, as your friend, to tell you to go into that other room and ask him on a date.”

“No. Not a chance. Even if asking your brother on a date wasn’t ranked higher on my personal list of “things I would never like to do, ever” than gouging my own horns out with a spoon, it’s not just a thing you do. I can’t just toss him a pizza roll, all, ‘Hey, wanna play some Doritoz Jammerz, by the way I’m so fucking in love with you I think my bile sack just burst.’”

You cannot believe you are discussing this like it’s a fucking thing that is happening. However your life got from Point A to Point Z with Point Z being discussing a confession of love to John Egbert, your buddymate who is also one of the most horrifically stupid people you know, you cannot hash out.

Your life is over. It has jumped the shark. Best to pack up now, declare quits, and relive the good times when you find them on DVD in a garage sale.

Jade sighs. “Fine. Have it your way. But as soon as you get an appropriate moment, you are going to tell him.”

Anything, anything to get out of that pantry and get on with the rest of your horrific life. “Yeah, sure, fine.”

“Shake on it.”

You hold out your hand. Jade barks, which you assume is another weird dog thing, but shakes firmly. There is something about her frog-colored eyes that says you are not getting out of this.

“Okay, now you can go,” she says, and she opens the pantry door and shoves you out.

Somehow, you stagger into the living room and sit down next to John – about whom you have just admitted to being desperately in love.

“So what did you and Jade want to talk about?”

“What? Nothing. We uttered nothing of substance in that kitchen. The amount of irrelevance spewing forth from our conversation has probably coalesced to become a outer god made of such a pure mindlessness all who look on it become instantly stupider.”

John gives you a look and then shrugs, queues up the DVD player, and hands you a pizza roll. You take it like your only lifeline in a world gone mad.

Your name is Karkat Vantas, and this is definitely _not_ your moment.

**Author's Note:**

> There is fanart for this work by the lovely piraticalpsyche! You can find it [here.](http://piraticalpsyche.tumblr.com/post/31045437012/) (Thank you so so much for doing a fanart based on my silly preview post.)


End file.
